


Calm Through The Storm

by neoqueentitania



Category: Sword Art Online (Anime & Manga)
Genre: ALSO this is a fic about asuna having a panic attack, F/M, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, i tagged it for you-know-what just in case, it's briefly mentioned BUT this is literally a fic about asuna having a panic attack, so i felt like it was important to tag stuff, so please don't read if you think you'll get triggered by it i'm so sorry!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-19
Updated: 2019-12-19
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:07:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21853420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neoqueentitania/pseuds/neoqueentitania
Summary: Maybe that was why they fit together so perfectly. Their broken pieces fit together like a glass puzzle, fragile, but invincible to the stones they’d been hit by. Maybe that’s what soulmates were, the people with demons that danced so beautifully together.Kirito and Asuna are both no stranger to panic attacks, they have them fairly frequently, and comforting each other through them had become almost a weekly routine by now. After all, they could understand what the other was going through better than anyone else.
Relationships: Kirigaya Kazuto | Kirito/Yuuki Asuna | Asuna
Comments: 11
Kudos: 112





	Calm Through The Storm

**Author's Note:**

> TW: Asuna has a PTSD panic attack and the fic very briefly mentions her feeling "hands across her skin" so if that would trigger you, please please don't read.
> 
> I, uh, have no explanation for this. I woke up in the middle of the night having a really bad panic attack and so I decided to self-project. Asuna I am so sorry.
> 
> ALSO HOLY CRAP this is 6 full pages of fic. Woo!

Asuna woke with a start, gasping for breath, looking around her room for reassurance that there was nothing and no-one trying to harm her.

When she had found some level of comfort in the relative safety of her room, she laid back down, swallowing hard and wiping away tears she hadn’t realised she’d been crying.

Nights like this were the hardest. The nights she could never articulate to her therapists or her friends and certainly not to her family. If they found out it was still this bad, she didn’t know what they would do, but she was certain it wouldn’t be good.

Likely, they’d make her see yet another professional who would let her talk for an hour, delicately wording her trauma as to not trigger herself, then report back to her parents that she seemed fine and that the nightmares would stop soon enough.

Soon enough just couldn’t come soon enough.

Asuna rolled around her bed for a few minutes, unable to fall back to sleep. She briefly considered walking to her parents' room to ask to sleep in their bed with them, but decided against it. It was best not to bother them with her own imagination, lest they make a fuss and worsen the panic attack she could feel in the pit of her stomach.

Resigning herself to the fact she wouldn’t be getting back to sleep easily, she slowly climbed out of her bed, checking her room over again, then began to walk to her kitchen as quietly as she could for a glass of water.

The hallway from her bedroom to the stairs seemed longer than she remembered it, and the mere thought of walking down steps in her current half-asleep state caused her to worry. 

But the thing at the forefront of her mind was that impending sense of dread she knew too well, the need to look over her shoulder, then back in front of her, then to the sides.

She couldn’t escape that feeling, couldn’t escape the feeling of hands crawling across her skin, claiming her own body for-

She couldn’t take the thoughts anymore. Everything screaming in her mind, it was too much. So she did the only thing she could do in the situation. She dropped to her knees, and she silently cried.

Everything hurt, everything felt numb. She didn’t know if she was even alive anymore, all she knew was that there was something wrong and she couldn’t fix it for herself.

The panic didn’t leave as she cried, it intensified until her entire body felt like she was being watched from every angle, memories flashing through her mind, her own screams resonating in her head, though she wasn’t sure if she was actually voicing them.

“Asuna?”

She must have made more noise than she originally thought, enough to wake her brother and call him into the hallway where she lay crumpled on the floor.

“Are you okay?” He asked, dropping to the floor next to her.

He attempted to soothingly touch her shoulder, but she pulled away, flinching and trembling, attempting to tell him to stop touching her, but her voice caught in her throat.

“Let me help you-“

She shook her head, as much as she possibly could, hoping he’d get the hint and leave her alone. This wasn’t anything she hadn’t been through before, she could recover from this on her own like she had every other attack.

“-please.” 

She kept shaking her head, hoping he would leave. It was humiliating to know that someone had seen her like this at all, let alone her own family. What would he tell their parents? She didn’t want to know.

“I’m… fine,” she choked out, her voice wet from sobs and sounding concerningly foreign to her. 

She kept trying to clear the images from her head, but they wouldn’t leave, etching themselves into her brain, cutting through her like a thousand knives.

They sat on the hallway floor, silently, for what seemed like an eternity. Asuna didn’t speak, Koichiro didn’t touch. They waited, stiff and awkward, until Asuna made the decision that she was okay enough to move again.

She looked at her brother through tears, then nodded her head shakily, hopeful that he would understand.

“You want Kazuto?” He asked.

Asuna didn’t smile at the mention of his name like she normally did, she couldn’t force her face to even pretend to be happy for a moment, but she nodded again, relieved that she would be able to talk to someone who understood.

Koichiro reached for Asuna’s hands, pulling her to her feet. She fell against him, legs still shaking too much to really support herself. Still, the pair of them walked back to her room and she collapsed onto her bed, crying all over again.

She was acutely aware of her brother calling Kazuto, but she couldn’t make out anything he was saying. Everything just blended into background noise while she desperately tried to calm the storm raging inside her head.

Koichiro said something to her that she didn’t understand, but she gave a small nod and then heard nothing else, so she assumed he’d left her room.

She kept staring up at her ceiling, endless white stretching across her vision, like she wished she could do to her mind. There was nothing she wanted more than to forget everything that Sugou had ever done to her, forget he even existed, forget anything had ever existed.

The only thing she wanted to remember was Kazuto. The one person who understood what it was like for her to live like this. 

She knew he knew, this wasn’t a secret they kept from each other, and it was strangely comforting to know that someone she held in such high regard had low moments like she did. She’d been there to see him through them, just as he’d been there to see her through hers. That was why she loved him so dearly. He’d seen her in what she considered to be the worst moments of herself when she barely even was herself, and he’d still stayed to see her get better.

She heard a knock at her door, which startled her from the comforting thoughts she’d managed to find.

“Asuna, it’s Kirito,”

She let herself breathe. She was safe now, safe with him again.

She knew he wouldn’t wait for her to call him in, she knew he could guess she wasn’t able to talk. So the sound of her door quietly opening and his voice comfortingly talking as he made his way to her bedside wasn’t quite as startling as the knock had been.

“You don’t have to talk,” he told her reassuringly, kneeling by her bed, “but I’m here, okay?”

She rolled over to look at him, her crying starting once more in what could only be described as painful relief. 

His hand found hers, their fingers intertwining, Kazuto making sure not to move too quickly, trying to not frighten her. 

“Has this been going on for long?”

She hesitated for a moment, then nodded, suddenly ashamed of admitting it. Why? She didn’t know. She knew that there was nothing shameful in admitting she wasn’t okay, but telling someone still felt completely and utterly humiliating. She felt herself start crying harder, though she didn’t understand why.

“Shh, it’s okay,” his voice was quiet to not wake anybody or overload Asuna when she was already so panicked, “It’s okay, I’m here. You’re okay, you’re safe, nothing can hurt you.”

Her tears fell silently as she gazed at Kazuto with so much love and appreciation she felt her heart might actually give out right then and there. She couldn’t say “I love you” at that moment like she wanted to, but she was sure he knew, and the way he looked at her so warmly, she was sure of his feelings, too.

She squeezed his hand gently, looking down to where their fingers were laced together. The feeling of her hand in his was her entire world, her motivation to beat these nights, to make it to the mornings with him by her side.

She used all the strength in her body to pull their hands up to her lips and gently kiss his knuckles, watching as his lips tugged into that goofy smile she adored so much.

“You’re cute,” he told her. Their hands fell back onto her mattress, and Kazuto lovingly stroked his thumb across the back of her hand.

Asuna relaxed a little more, managing some deep breaths, though her chest still felt tight, like she had to struggle for each breath she took.

“You’re doing good, I’m so proud of you,”

He watched her for a few moments, giving her as much reassurance as he possibly could, too painfully aware of what she was going through.

She felt guilty, knowing that he always saw her like this, worried that him seeing her like this so rawly would set off a panic attack of his own. But time and time again he’d assured her that he wanted to help her, that he would be fine, as long as she could be there for him when he needed her.

She hoped she helped him even half as much as he helped her.

She knew he never let on how much he really hurt. She could tell. Not only did he have his own past and his own trauma, but he’d also had to watch her be so mercilessly and cruelly attacked. 

That guilt plagued her every day. The way he never allowed his lips to linger on hers after they’d kissed, the way he was so cautious to touch her, the way he asked for her permission to kiss her most times. They were all things he did because he’d been hurt along with her that day. She hurt just thinking about how he must have felt.

After several moments of silence, Asuna nodded her head to Kazuto that she felt a little better. 

“Do you think you can speak yet?”

“Does my voice sound okay?” She asked. 

She cringed at the sound of her own voice, now shaky, hoarse and breathless.

“Your voice always sounds beautiful,” Kazuto sounded relieved, much as Asuna felt. The worst part was over now. 

“I’m sorry…” Asuna looked down at her lap, mortified that Kazuto had come so far so quickly just to see her crying.

“Hey, you don’t have to apologise. Remember what I told you back in Aincrad?”

She smiled at him softly, adjusting herself to lay more comfortably and shift over enough to give him room to lay next to her.

“This is another side-” she took a breath, wiping her tears with her free hand, the other still tightly holding Kazuto’s, “-another side of me you love?”

Kazuto nodded, kissing the back of her hand softly, then smiled at her like she was the sunlight that promised to stream through her curtains soon enough.

“I love this side of you, just like I love all the others,” 

Asuna sighed in relief. Of course, she already knew, but hearing him say it was the thing that finally put the screaming in her mind at bay for the night. She wasn’t completely calm yet, but she was better at least.

“Still,” she looked at the wall, their hands, her pillow, everywhere she could look except for at him, “I don’t understand why you love me when I’m like this…”

“Because you love me when I’m like this.”

His eyes met hers again, his onyx eyes now slightly wet with tears she felt guilty for seeing. How did he make her feel like this? So loved and understood even when she felt isolated and unlovable. She didn’t understand how, and she certainly couldn’t voice it, but she knew. Something inside her knew that he could understand her and help her when she was like this because he had moments like this for himself. She’d seen him through those moments so many times, yet she never complained. She just stayed with him, held him, spoke to him, calmed him the best she could, until he told her he was okay.

Maybe that was why they fit together so perfectly. Their broken pieces fit together like a glass puzzle, fragile, but invincible to the stones they’d been hit by. Maybe that’s what soulmates were, the people with demons that danced so beautifully together.

Or maybe her brain was overthinking things like it tended to do on nights like this.

She motioned her head to the newly vacant area on her bed, tugging no Kazuto’s arm gently. He didn’t need more explanation, slowly sitting on the edge of her bed, looking at her once more, then lying down, making sure to keep a distance between the two of them.

Once he was sure Asuna was more comfortable, he put an arm around her, searching her face for any sign of discomfort. But she seemed blissfully content, even letting him pull her closer to his chest so she could rest her head and listen to his heartbeat.

“Do you think we’ll be able to sleep before sunrise?” He asked. He wouldn’t be sleeping, they both knew that. Nights like this he’d stay awake and watch Asuna sleep to ensure she didn’t wake up again. He’d take a thousand sleepless nights over knowing she was hurting.

Asuna shook her head lightly, almost laughing. It was just the two of them, and now, wrapped in his arms, she felt the safest she ever had in her entire life. She’d have to fight for her life, now somehow harder than the days back in Aincrad, but as long as Kazuto was with her, she knew she’d make it.

She closed her eyes one final time and sighed in contentment, Kazuto running his fingers through her hair gently to calm her down as much as he could. She was safe, he’d make sure of that.

“Please be having sweet dreams,” he whispered softly, and Asuna smiled against the fabric of his shirt. 

The night had been long, but this moment was worth it. She’d endure however many rough nights it took to get better until she could truly say she fell asleep to this feeling every night. The feeling of falling asleep feeling loved, and safe, and secure, and warm - like the first rays of sunlight making their way into her room as she fell into a calm, blissful sleep.


End file.
